Upcoming Talks at NMRA Convention

I will be presenting two talks at the NMRA Convention in Portland, OR next week. The are scheduled for Wednesday evening and Friday afternoon. If you are in town, please stop by. Convention registration will be required.

The talks are entitled, "Model Railroads Go to War" and "USMRR Aquia Line- a Layout Update."

The first talk is a quick survey of railroads at war and how to model them. It  parallels my last book with the same title.

The Layout Update is a look at the design, construction, and finished scenes on my O scale home layout. Readers of the blog will be familiar with most of it, but I did take some new photos for the talk.

Tonight, Jim Mackay, director of the Lyceum, Alexandria's History Museum, stopped by to visit the layout(s), and check on progress on the Pioneer Mills model.  We discussed the next steps for the project, which include a Pungy style sailing ship and a portion of the locomotive works.

In his hand is the pilot model of Pioneer Mills that I rejected because the windows were too small. He will use it as a pencil holder on his desk. He remarked,  "the pilot model looked liked the mill after the fire."

I suggested he add some fireplace ashes to make the effect more convincing.  I'm not sure if he will act on that suggestion.